By News Agency of Kashmir
Srinagar : The repeated assertions of chief minister Ghulam Nabi Azad about providing a corruption free, accountable and transparent government, notwithstanding, the ministers and their private staff is neck deep into corruption charges with senior and junior officers becoming the milching cows.
The Roads and Buildings department which has the notoriety of having the Ministers who would convene a ‘Darbar’ of the prospective engineers and junior engineers even before the portfolios were allotted to them, and the Ministers seeking sexual favours for work done, is now having the distinction of a Ministers whose one Pvt Secretary is facing Vigilance probe while the other ones are playing the same trick even after the Vigilance department has created a history by trapping the personal staff member of a sitting Minister.
Chief Minister Ghulam Nabi Azad during a recent Editor’s Conference in Srinagar has made repeated claims of being first in many aspects including incorporation of Attachment of ill-gotten Property provision in Prevention of Corruption Act, but conveniently forgot about the corruption charges against his cabinet and junior ministers in the state ministry.
The Roads and Building department, may be for the first time, has been allotted to a person who has put a stop on transfer and posting industry but the junior minister belonging to PDP is alleged to have been making merry by inviting the junior engineers and even those who are being transferred on merit by the senior minister claiming that the files have to be routed through him.
Sources in the Civil secretariat disclosed that Minister of State for R&B has chosen a staff which to its credit has the distinction of tarnishing the career of many prospective politicians including Bashir Ahmed Nengroo of NC to Syed Bashir of PDP and now the fate of MoS R&B seems to be heading in the same direction.
Sources said that former Pvt Secretary of MoS R&B Dr Bashir used to call the junior engineers in his office chambers and would threaten that they had over stayed in their respective postings. Acting as an expert mathematician and statistician he would bring out the figures of their being losing many perks if they would be transferred out to a rural area and would strike a deal for anything between Rs 70, 000 to Rs 5000. The overindulgence of Dr Bashir cost him heavily and he was trapped by Vigilance while the Minister remained untouched.
Now the same duty is alleged to have been assigned to the PRO and a Panditji in the office who are reported to have prepared a fake list of impending transfer of junior engineers and in routine telephonically inform them of under transfer.
The aggrieved engineers approach the private staff of the minister and the deal is settled, informed a junior engineer on the condition of anonymity. He said that the life has become hell for the employees under the present dispensation as even after paying hefty amount one is not sure of assured stay on the post. While the big fish have a stay of more than 10 to 11 years in different departments and nobody is asking them anything as they pay from top to bottom.